The clothes are uncomfortable. The smells of hundreds of colognes and perfumes and dry-cleaning fluids and deodorants and the products used to clean the carpets and the restrooms are pervasive and distracting.

The smells of the old bibles and the used crayons, the pissy butts of the other children and the breaths of everyone are simply monstrous.

The sounds are everywhere. The odd textures of his own clothing, the greasiness of the folding chairs, the sick sweetness of the snack juice and the crumbling of the architecture and the cookies all combine to indicate to the fight or flight response that it is time to do something, anything, rather than submit to these strange and hurtful people.

Then he gets punished. And the hurt continues. Then the parents get called out of their important rituals. More humiliation. And later, when we get home, a whipping.

God, Jesus, Aphrodite, Zeus, Astarte, Lilith, Mithras, anybody! Where were you when I needed you?